Plastic bottle cases for holding two rows of bottles are mostly designed for six or eight bottles. Primarily they serve for transporting one liter bottles of the soft drink industry. However, they can also serve as bottle carriers for substantially smaller bottles, for example beer bottles.
There are a large number of bottle carriers and bottles cases of this kind. There is a still larger number of bottles cases designed for the transport of a larger number of bottles, for example twenty, twenty-four or thirty bottles. In order to hold bottles in such bottle cases and bottle carriers securely so that they will not hit and damage one another during transport, a large number of solutions have been proposed. Initially there were provided crossing inner walls so as to form a compartment for each bottle and thereby hold each bottle upright during transport and at the same time assure that the bottles during transport do not strike one another but only the partition walls. Even today, bottle cases of this kind are in wide use.
Moreover, for a special purpose namely for transporting bottles packed in carriers or "packs" and also individual bottles, plastic bottle cases are known which for each row of bottles have two inclined inner walls provided with elliptical openings to receive the bottles with bottle supporting bars at the bottoms of the openings. Bottle carriers adapted to be received in the case have side walls which are inclined in the same manner as the inner walls of the case. Individual bottles are received in the openings of the inner walls so as to hold them upright and keep them from bumping one another.
A particular problem has arisen today by reason of the sharp increase in the cost of the plastic material of which bottle cases are made. By reason of the high cost of the plastic material, it is important to make the bottle cases as light as possible so as to require a minimum amount of material while at the same time assuring stability of the case and proper support for the bottles.